shakespeare biography simplified

William Shakespeare

Playwright and poet William Shakespeare is considered the greatest dramatist of all time. His works are loved throughout the world, but Shakespeare’s personal life is shrouded in mystery.

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Wife and children, shakespeare’s lost years, poems and sonnets, the king’s men: life as an actor and playwright, globe theater, william shakespeare’s plays, later years and death, legacy and controversies, who was william shakespeare.

William Shakespeare was an English poet , playwright , and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King’s Men theatrical company from roughly 1594 onward. Known throughout the world, Shakespeare’s works—at least 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 narrative poems—capture the range of human emotion and conflict and have been celebrated for more than 400 years. Details about his personal life are limited, though some believe he was born and died on the same day, April 23, 52 years apart.

FULL NAME: William Shakespeare BORN: c. April 23, 1564 DIED: c. April 23, 1616 BIRTHPLACE: Stratford-upon-Avon, England, United Kingdom SPOUSE: Anne Hathaway (1582-1616) CHILDREN: Susanna, Judith, and Hamnet ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Taurus

The personal life of William Shakespeare is somewhat of a mystery . There are two primary sources that provide historians with an outline of his life. One is his work, and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However, these provide only brief sketches of specific events in his life and yield little insight into the man himself.

When Was Shakespeare Born?

No birth records exist, but an old church record indicates that William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as Shakespeare’s birthday. Located about 100 miles northwest of London, Stratford-upon-Avon was a bustling market town along the River Avon and bisected by a country road during Shakespeare’s time.

Parents and Siblings

Shakespeare was the third child of John Shakespeare, a glove-maker and leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local heiress to land. John held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However, records indicate John’s fortunes declined sometime in the late 1570s. Eventually, he recovered somewhat and was granted a coat of arms in 1596, which made him and his sons official gentleman.

John and Mary had eight children together, though three of them did not live past childhood. Their first two children—daughters Joan and Margaret—died in infancy, so William was the oldest surviving offspring. He had three younger brothers and two younger sisters: Gilbert, Joan, Anne, Richard, and Edmund. Anne died at age 7, and Joan was the only sibling to outlive William.

Childhood and Education

Scant records exist of Shakespeare’s childhood and virtually none regarding his education. Scholars have surmised that he most likely attended the King’s New School, in Stratford, which taught reading, writing, and the classics, including Latin. He attended until he was 14 or 15 and did not continue to university. The uncertainty regarding his education has led some people question the authorship of his work.

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. Shakespeare was 18, and Anne was 26 and, as it turns out, pregnant.

Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet died of unknown causes at age 11.

There are seven years of Shakespeare’s life where no records exist: after the birth of his twins in 1585 until 1592. Scholars call this period Shakespeare’s lost years, and there is wide speculation about what he was doing during this period.

One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from local landlord Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire. Some scholars believe he was in London, working as a horse attendant at some of London’s finer theaters before breaking on the scene.

By 1592, there is evidence Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced. The September 20, 1592, edition of the Stationers’ Register , a guild publication, includes an article by London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at Shakespeare:

“...There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapped in a Player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.”

Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene’s way of saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe , Thomas Nashe, or Greene himself.

Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention and patronage of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first and second published poems: Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). In fact, these long narrative poems—1,194 and 1,855 lines, respectively—were Shakespeare’s first published works. Wriothesley’s financial support was a helpful source of income at a time when the theaters were shuttered due to a plague outbreak.

Shakespeare’s most well-known poetry are his 154 sonnets, which were first published as a collection in 1609 and likely written as early as the 1590s. Scholars broadly categorize the sonnets in groups based on two unknown subjects that Shakespeare addresses: the Fair Youth sonnets (the first 126) and the Dark Lady sonnets (the last 28). The identities of the aristocratic young man and vexing woman continue to be a source of speculation.

In 1594, Shakespeare joined Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the London acting company that he worked with for the duration of his career. Later called the King’s Men, it was considered the most important troupe of its time and was very popular by all accounts. Some sources describe Shakespeare as a founding member of the company, but whatever the case, he became central to its success. Initially, he was an actor and eventually devoted more and more time to writing.

Records show that Shakespeare, who was also a company shareholder, had works published and sold as popular literature. Although The Taming of the Shrew is believed to be the first play that Shakespeare wrote, his first published plays were Titus Andronicus and Henry VI Part 2 . They were printed in 1594 in quarto, an eight-page pamphlet-like book. By the end of 1597, Shakespeare had likely written 16 of his 37 plays and amassed some wealth.

At this time, civil records show Shakespeare purchased one of the largest houses in Stratford, called New Place, for his family. It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it’s believed that Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year during the 40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed. However, Shakespeare expert and professor Sir Stanley Wells posits that the playwright might have spent more time at home in Stratford than previously believed, only commuting to London when he needed to for work.

Although the theater culture in 16 th century England was not greatly admired by people of high rank, some of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors. Two notable exceptions were Queen Elizabeth I , who was a fan of Lord Chamberlain’s Men by the late 1590s after first watching a performance in 1594, and her successor King James I. Following his crowning in 1603, the company changed its name to the King’s Men.

By 1599, Shakespeare and several fellow actors built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe Theater. Julius Caesar is thought to be the first production at the new open-air theater. Owning the playhouse proved to be a financial boon for Shakespeare and the other investors.

In 1613, the Globe caught fire during a performance of Henry VII I and burned to the ground. The company quickly rebuilt it, and it reopened the next year. In 1642, Puritans outlawed all theaters, including the Globe, which was demolished two years later. Centuries passed until American actor Sam Wanamaker began working to resurrect the theater once more. The third Globe Theater opened in 1997, and today, more than 1.25 million people visit it every year.

It’s difficult to determine the exact chronology of Shakespeare’s plays, but over the course of two decades, from about 1590 to 1613, he wrote 37 plays revolving around three main themes: history, tragedy, and comedy. Some plays blur these lines, and over time, our interpretation of them has changed, too.

Shakespeare’s early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn’t always align naturally with the story’s plot or characters. However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words.

With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

Many of Shakespeare’s first plays were histories. All three Henry VI plays, Richard II , and Henry V dramatize the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers and have been interpreted by drama historians as Shakespeare’s way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty. Other histories include Richard III , King John , the two Henry IV plays, and Henry VIII . With exception of Henry VIII , which was Shakespeare’s last play, these works were likely written by 1599.

Although Shakespeare wrote three tragedies, including Romeo and Juliet , before 1600, it wasn’t until after the turn of the century that he truly explored the genre. Character in Othello , King Lear , and Macbeth present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal.

Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamlet , which explores betrayal, retribution, incest, and moral failure. These moral failures often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare’s plots, destroying the hero and those he loves.

Julius Caesar , written in circa 1599, portrays upheaval in Roman politics that might have resonated with viewers at a time when England’s aging monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, had no legitimate heir, thus creating the potential for future power struggles.

Titus Andronicus , Anthony and Cleopatra , Timon of Athens , and Coriolanus are Shakespeare’s other tragic plays.

Shakespeare wrote comedies throughout his career, including his first play The Taming of the Shrew . Some of his other early comedies, written before 1600 or so, are: the whimsical A Midsummer Night’s Dream , the romantic Merchant of Venice , the wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing , and the charming As You Like It .

Some of his comedies might be better described as tragicomedies. Among these are Pericles , Cymbeline , The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest . Although graver in tone than the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and forgiveness.

Additional Shakespeare comedies include:

• The Two Gentlemen of Verona ,
• The Comedy of Errors ,
• Love’s Labour’s Lost ,
• The Merry Wives of Windsor ,
• Twelfth Night ,
• Measure for Measure , and
• All’s Well That Ends Well

Troilus and Cressida is emblematic of the Shakespearean “problem play,” which defies genres. Some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries classified it as a history or a comedy, though the original name of the play was The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida .

Collaborations and Lost Play

Shakespeare is known to have created plays with other writers, such as John Fletcher. They co-wrote The Two Noble Kinsmen around 1613–14, making it Shakespeare’s last known dramatic work. They also collaborated on Cardenio , a play which was not preserved. Shakespeare’s other jointly written plays are Sir Thomas More and The Raigne of King Edward the Third . When including these works, Shakespeare has 41 plays to his name.

Around the turn of the 17 th century, Shakespeare became a more extensive property owner in Stratford. When his father, John, died in 1601, he inherited the family home. Then, in 1602, he purchased about 107 acres for 320 pounds.

In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him uninterrupted time to write his plays.

A couple years prior, around 1603, Shakespeare is believed to have stopped acting in the King’s Men productions, instead focusing on his playwriting work. He likely spent the last three years of his life in Stratford.

When Did Shakespeare Die?

Tradition holds that Shakespeare died on his 52 nd birthday, April 23, 1616, but some scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Holy Trinity Church on April 25, 1616. The exact cause of Shakespeare’s death is unknown , though many people believe he died following a brief illness.

In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna, who by then was married. Although entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his “second-best bed.” This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor or that the couple was not close.

However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. Other scholars note that the term “second-best bed” often refers to the bed belonging to the household’s master and mistress, the marital bed, and the “first-best bed” was reserved for guests.

The Bard of Avon has gone down in history as the greatest dramatist of all time and is sometimes called England’s national poet. He is credited with inventing or introducing more than 1,700 words to the English language, often as a result of combining words, changing usages, or blending in foreign root words. If you’ve used the words “downstairs,” “egregious,” “kissing,” “zany,” or “skim milk,” you can thank Shakespeare. He is also responsible for many common phrases, such as “love is blind” and “wild goose chase.”

First Folio

Although some of Shakespeare’s works were printed in his lifetime, not all were. It is because of the First Folio that we know about 18 of Shakespeare’s plays, including Macbeth , Twelfth Night , and Julius Caesar . John Heminge and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s friends and fellow actors in the King’s Men, created the 36-play collection, which celebrates its 400 th anniversary this year. It was published with the title Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories and Tragedies in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare died.

In addition to its literary importance, the First Folio contains an original portrait of Shakespeare on the title page. Engraved by Martin Droeshout, it’s considered one of the two authentic portraits of the writer. The other is a memorial bust at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.

Today, there are 235 surviving copies of the First Folio that date back to 1623, but experts estimate roughly 750 First Folios were printed. Three subsequent editions of Shakespeare’s Folio, with text updates and additional plays, were published between 1632 and 1685.

Did Shakespeare Write His Own Plays?

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere, and Francis Bacon —men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration—as the true authors of the plays.

Much of this stemmed from the sketchy details of Shakespeare’s life and the dearth of contemporary primary sources. Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright.

Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in Shakespeare’s works. Over the centuries, several groups have emerged that question the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays.

The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19 th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate.

Members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society, founded in 1957, put forth arguments that English aristocrat and poet Edward de Vere, the 17 th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the poems and plays of “William Shakespeare.” The Oxfordians cite de Vere’s extensive knowledge of aristocratic society, his education, and the structural similarities between his poetry and that found in the works attributed to Shakespeare. They contend that Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters.

However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and came from modest backgrounds.

They contend that King’s New School in Stratford had a curriculum of Latin and the classics could have provided a good foundation for literary writers. Supporters of Shakespeare’s authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare’s life doesn’t mean his life didn’t exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays.

Examples exist of authors and critics of the time acknowledging Shakespeare as the author of plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona , The Comedy of Errors , and King John .

Royal records from 1601 show that Shakespeare was recognized as a member of the King’s Men theater company and a Groom of the Chamber by the court of King James I, where the company performed seven of Shakespeare’s plays.

There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright.

Literary Legacy

What seems to be true is that Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in the late 16 th and early 17 th centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic genius wasn’t recognized until the 19 th century.

Beginning with the Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20 th century, new movements in scholarship and performance rediscovered and adopted his works.

Today, his plays remain highly popular and are constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare’s characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England.

• The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
• This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
• There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
• Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.
• Lord, what fools these mortals be!
• To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
• In time we hate that which we often fear.
• Men at some time are masters of their fates: the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
• What’s done cannot be undone.
• We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
• Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
• The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
• All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
• Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
• I say there is no darkness but ignorance.
• I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
• Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

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William Shakespeare Biography

Who was william shakespeare.

• In this section

An Introduction

William Shakespeare was a renowned English poet, playwright, and actor born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon . His birthday is most commonly celebrated on 23 April (see  When was Shakespeare born ), which is also believed to be the date he died in 1616.

Shakespeare was a prolific writer during the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages of British theatre (sometimes called the English Renaissance or the Early Modern Period). Shakespeare’s plays are perhaps his most enduring legacy, but they are not all he wrote. Shakespeare’s poems  also remain popular to this day. 

Shakespeare's Family Life

Records survive relating to  William Shakespeare’s family  that offer an understanding of the context of Shakespeare's early life and the lives of his family members. John Shakespeare married Mary Arden , and together they had eight children. John and Mary lost two daughters as infants, so William became their eldest child. John Shakespeare worked as a glove-maker, but he also became an important figure in the town of Stratford by fulfilling civic positions. His elevated status meant that he was even more likely to have sent his children, including William, to the local grammar school . 

William Shakespeare would have lived with his family in their house on Henley Street until he turned eighteen. When he was eighteen,  Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway , who was twenty-six. It was a rushed marriage because Anne was already pregnant at the time of the ceremony. Together they had three children. Their first daughter, Susanna , was born six months after the wedding and was later followed by twins  Hamnet and Judith . Hamnet died when he was just 11 years old.

• For an overview of William Shakespeare's life, see Shakespeare's Life: A Timeline

Shakespeare in London

Shakespeare's career jump-started in London, but when did he go there? We know Shakespeare's twins were baptised in 1585, and that by 1592 his reputation was established in London, but the intervening years are considered a mystery. Scholars generally refer to these years as ‘ The Lost Years ’.

During his time in London, Shakespeare’s first printed works were published. They were two long poems, 'Venus and Adonis' (1593) and 'The Rape of Lucrece' (1594). He also became a founding member of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a company of actors. Shakespeare was the company's regular dramatist, producing on average two plays a year, for almost twenty years. 

He remained with the company for the rest of his career, during which time it evolved into The King’s Men under the patronage of King James I (from 1603). During his time in the company Shakespeare wrote many of his most famous tragedies, such as King Lear and Macbeth , as well as great romances, like The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest . 

• For more about Shakespeare's patrons and his work in London see; Shakespeare's Career

Shakespeare's Works

Altogether  Shakespeare's works include 38 plays, 2 narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and a variety of other poems. No original manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays are known to exist today. It is actually thanks to a group of actors from Shakespeare's company that we have about half of the plays at all. They collected them for publication after Shakespeare died, preserving the plays. These writings were brought together in what is known as the First Folio ('Folio' refers to the size of the paper used). It contained 36 of his plays, but none of his poetry. 

Shakespeare’s legacy is as rich and diverse as his work; his plays have spawned countless adaptations across multiple genres and cultures. His plays have had an enduring presence on stage and film. His writings have been compiled in various iterations of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, which include all of his plays, sonnets, and other poems. William Shakespeare continues to be one of the most important literary figures of the English language.

New Place; a home in Stratford-upon-Avon

Shakespeare’s success in the London theatres made him considerably wealthy, and by 1597 he was able to purchase  New Place ,   the largest house in the borough of  Stratford-upon-Avon . Although his professional career was spent in London, he maintained close links with his native town. 

Recent archaeological evidence discovered on the site of Shakespeare’s New Place shows that Shakespeare was only ever an intermittent lodger in London. This suggests he divided his time between Stratford and London (a two or three-day commute). In his later years, he may have spent more time in Stratford-upon-Avon than scholars previously thought.

• Watch our video for more about Shakespeare as a literary commuter:

On his father's death in 1601, William Shakespeare inherited the old family home in Henley Street part of which was then leased to tenants. Further property investments in Stratford followed, including the purchase of 107 acres of land in 1602.

Shakespeare died  in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23 April 1616 at the age of 52. He is buried in the sanctuary of the parish church, Holy Trinity.

All the world's a stage /And all the men and women merely players. / They have their exits and their entrances, / And one man in his time plays many parts. — As You Like It, Act 2 Scene 7

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William Shakespeare

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 7, 2019 | Original: October 3, 2011

Considered the greatest English-speaking writer in history and known as England’s national poet, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) has had more theatrical works performed than any other playwright. To this day, countless theater festivals around the world honor his work, students memorize his eloquent poems and scholars reinterpret the million words of text he composed. They also hunt for clues about the life of the man who inspires such “bardolatry” (as George Bernard Shaw derisively called it), much of which remains shrouded in mystery. Born into a family of modest means in Elizabethan England, the “Bard of Avon” wrote at least 37 plays and a collection of sonnets, established the legendary Globe theater and helped transform the English language.

Shakespeare’s Childhood and Family Life

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a bustling market town 100 miles northwest of London, and baptized there on April 26, 1564. His birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23, which was the date of his death in 1616 and is the feast day of St. George, the patron saint of England. Shakespeare’s father, John, dabbled in farming, wood trading, tanning, leatherwork, money lending and other occupations; he also held a series of municipal positions before falling into debt in the late 1580s. The ambitious son of a tenant farmer, John boosted his social status by marrying Mary Arden, the daughter of an aristocratic landowner. Like John, she may have been a practicing Catholic at a time when those who rejected the newly established Church of England faced persecution.

Did you know? Sources from William Shakespeare's lifetime spell his last name in more than 80 different ways, ranging from “Shappere” to “Shaxberd.” In the handful of signatures that have survived, he himself never spelled his name “William Shakespeare,” using variations such as “Willm Shakspere” and “William Shakspeare” instead.

William was the third of eight Shakespeare children, of whom three died in childhood. Though no records of his education survive, it is likely that he attended the well-regarded local grammar school, where he would have studied Latin grammar and classics. It is unknown whether he completed his studies or abandoned them as an adolescent to apprentice with his father.

At 18 Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (1556-1616), a woman eight years his senior, in a ceremony thought to have been hastily arranged due to her pregnancy. A daughter, Susanna, was born less than seven months later in May 1583. Twins Hamnet and Judith followed in February 1585. Susanna and Judith would live to old age, while Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died at 11. As for William and Anne, it is believed that the couple lived apart for most of the year while the bard pursued his writing and theater career in London. It was not until the end of his life that Shakespeare moved back in with Anne in their Stratford home.

Shakespeare’s Lost Years and Early Career

To the dismay of his biographers, Shakespeare disappears from the historical record between 1585, when his twins’ baptism was recorded, and 1592, when the playwright Robert Greene denounced him in a pamphlet as an “upstart crow” (evidence that he had already made a name for himself on the London stage). What did the newly married father and future literary icon do during those seven “lost” years? Historians have speculated that he worked as a schoolteacher, studied law, traveled across continental Europe or joined an acting troupe that was passing through Stratford. According to one 17th-century account, he fled his hometown after poaching deer from a local politician’s estate.

Whatever the answer, by 1592 Shakespeare had begun working as an actor, penned several plays and spent enough time in London to write about its geography, culture and diverse personalities with great authority. Even his earliest works evince knowledge of European affairs and foreign countries, familiarity with the royal court and general erudition that might seem unattainable to a young man raised in the provinces by parents who were probably illiterate. For this reason, some theorists have suggested that one or several authors wishing to conceal their true identity used the person of William Shakespeare as a front. (Most scholars and literary historians dismiss this hypothesis, although many suspect Shakespeare sometimes collaborated with other playwrights.)

Shakespeare’s Plays and Poems

Shakespeare’s first plays, believed to have been written before or around 1592, encompass all three of the main dramatic genres in the bard’s oeuvre: tragedy (“Titus Andronicus”); comedy (“The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “The Comedy of Errors” and “The Taming of the Shrew”); and history (the “Henry VI” trilogy and “Richard III”). Shakespeare was likely affiliated with several different theater companies when these early works debuted on the London stage. In 1594 he began writing and acting for a troupe known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (renamed the King’s Men when James I appointed himself its patron), ultimately becoming its house playwright and partnering with other members to establish the legendary Globe theater in 1599.

Between the mid-1590s and his retirement around 1612, Shakespeare penned the most famous of his 37-plus plays, including “Romeo and Juliet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Hamlet,” “King Lear,” “Macbeth” and “The Tempest.” As a dramatist, he is known for his frequent use of iambic pentameter, meditative soliloquies (such as Hamlet’s ubiquitous “To be, or not to be” speech) and ingenious wordplay. His works weave together and reinvent theatrical conventions dating back to ancient Greece, featuring assorted casts of characters with complex psyches and profoundly human interpersonal conflicts. Some of his plays—notably “All’s Well That Ends Well,” “Measure for Measure” and “Troilus and Cressida”—are characterized by moral ambiguity and jarring shifts in tone, defying, much like life itself, classification as purely tragic or comic.

Also remembered for his non-dramatic contributions, Shakespeare published his first narrative poem—the erotic “Venus and Adonis,” intriguingly dedicated to his close friend Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton—while London theaters were closed due to a plague outbreak in 1593. The many reprints of this piece and a second poem, “The Rape of Lucrece,” hint that during his lifetime the bard was chiefly renowned for his poetry. Shakespeare’s famed collection of sonnets, which address themes ranging from love and sensuality to truth and beauty, was printed in 1609, possibly without its writer’s consent. (It has been suggested that he intended them for his intimate circle only, not the general public.) Perhaps because of their explicit sexual references or dark emotional character, the sonnets did not enjoy the same success as Shakespeare’s earlier lyrical works.

Shakespeare’s Death and Legacy

Shakespeare died at age 52 of unknown causes on April 23, 1616, leaving the bulk of his estate to his daughter Susanna. (Anne Hathaway, who outlived her husband by seven years, famously received his “second-best bed.”) The slabstone over Shakespeare’s tomb, located inside a Stratford church, bears an epitaph—written, some say, by the bard himself—warding off grave robbers with a curse: “Blessed be the man that spares these stones, / And cursed be he that moves my bones.” His remains have yet to be disturbed, despite requests by archaeologists keen to reveal what killed him.

In 1623, two of Shakespeare’s former colleagues published a collection of his plays, commonly known as the First Folio. In its preface, the dramatist Ben Jonson wrote of his late contemporary, “He was not of an age, but for all time.” Indeed, Shakespeare’s plays continue to grace stages and resonate with audiences around the world, and have yielded a vast array of film, television and theatrical adaptations. Furthermore, Shakespeare is believed to have influenced the English language more than any other writer in history, coining—or, at the very least, popularizing—terms and phrases that still regularly crop up in everyday conversation. Examples include the words “fashionable” (“Troilus and Cressida”), “sanctimonious” (“Measure for Measure”), “eyeball” (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) and “lackluster” (“As You Like It”); and the expressions “foregone conclusion” (“Othello”), “in a pickle” (“The Tempest”), “wild goose chase” (“Romeo and Juliet”) and “one fell swoop” (“Macbeth”).

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Shakespeare's Biography

William Shakespeare (also spelled Shakspere, Shaksper, and Shake-speare, because spelling in Elizabethan times was not yet fixed and absolute) was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England in April 1564. William was the son of John Shakespeare, a successful tradesman and alderman, and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. They lived on Henley Street . His baptismal record is dated April 26 of that year. Due to the fact that birth certificates were not issued during Elizabethan times, the first official record we have of Shakespeare is his baptismal record. Baptisms were normally performed within a few days of birth, thus a tradition arose that he was born on Sunday, April 23, but this has no historical basis. It is factual, however, that Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. Legend has it that Shakespeare died of a fever, and although an outbreak of typhoid hit Stratford in 1616, the facts behind Shakespeare’s death remain a mystery.

The house in Stratford is known as “Shakespeare’s Birthplace,” although this status is uncertain. It is claimed that the poet was born in the room with the lattice windows. Shakespeare’s father was a prosperous glove maker and held many titles during his lifetime, including ale taster, chamberlain, alderman, bailiff (equivalent to mayor), and chief alderman. He was later prosecuted for participating in the black market in wool, and lost his position as an alderman. Some evidence points to possible Roman Catholic sympathies on both sides of the family—a danger under Elizabeth’s protestant rule.

William Shakespeare probably attended the Stratford Grammar School in central Stratford, which likely provided an intensive education in Latin grammar, and translating such authors as Cicero, Virgil, and Shakespeare’s beloved Ovid. It is presumed that the young Shakespeare attended this school because John Shakespeare’s position as alderman allowed his children a free education at the school. Unfortunately there are no surviving school records to corroborate. There is no evidence that his formal education extended beyond grammar school.

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (who was 26) at the age of 18, on November 28, 1582 at Temple Grafton , near Stratford. Two neighbors of Anne, Fulk Sandalls and John Richardson, posted bond that there were no impediments to the marriage. There appears to have been some haste in arranging the ceremony, as Anne was three months pregnant. After his marriage, William Shakespeare left few traces in the historical record until he appeared on the London literary scene. On May 26, 1583 Shakespeare’s first child, Susanna, was baptized at Stratford. A son, Hamnet, and a daughter, Judith, were baptized soon after on February 2, 1585. Hamnet died in 1596 at the age of eleven of unknown causes. Some suspect that his death was part of the inspiration behind The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (c.1601), a reworking of an older, lost play. Susanna and Judith lived to ripe ages of sixty-six and sixty-one, respectively.

The late 1580s are known as Shakespeare’s “Lost Years” because no evidence has survived to show exactly where he was or why he left Stratford for London. One legend, long since thoroughly discredited, pronounces that he was caught poaching deer on the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, the local Justice of the Peace, and had to flee. Another theory is that Shakespeare could have joined Leicester’s or Queen’s Men as they traveled through Stratford while on tour. 17 th century biographer John Aubrey recorded the testimony of the son of one of Shakespeare’s fellow players, placing Shakespeare as “a schoolmaster in the country.”

London and Theatrical Career

By the end of 1592, Shakespeare was an established playwright in London, receiving acclaim for such plays as Henry VI , The Comedy of Errors , and Titus Andronicus . By 1598 Shakespeare had moved to the parish of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, and appeared at the top of a list of actors in Every Man in His Humour written by Ben Jonson. Shakespeare became an actor, writer, and finally part-owner of a playing company, known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men—the company took its name, like others of the period, from its aristocratic sponsor, the Lord Chamberlain. The group became popular enough that after the death of Elizabeth I and the coronation of James I (1603), the new monarch adopted the company after which it became known as the King’s Men.

In 1604, Shakespeare acted as a matchmaker for his landlord’s daughter. Legal documents from 1612, when the case was brought to trial, show that in 1604, Shakespeare was a tenant of Christopher Mountjoy, a Huguenot tire-maker (a maker of ornamental headdresses) in the northwest of London. Mountjoy’s apprentice Stephen Belott wanted to marry Mountjoy’s daughter. Shakespeare was enlisted as a go-between, to help negotiate the details of the dowry. On Shakespeare’s assurances, the couple married. Eight years later, Belott sued his father-in-law for delivering only part of the dowry. Shakespeare was called to testify, but remembered little of the circumstances. Various documents recording legal affairs and commercial transactions show that Shakespeare grew rich enough during his stay in London to purchase a property in both Blackfriars and London. In 1597, Shakespeare also purchased the second largest house in Stratford (called New Place). It is here that Shakespeare would eventually spend the last years of his life.

Later Years

Shakespeare “retired” to Stratford in about 1610-11, although he still spent much time in London and attending to his company’s affairs. His retirement was not entirely without controversy; he was drawn into a legal quarrel regarding the enclosure of common lands. (Enclosure enabled land to be converted to pasture for sheep, but removed it as a resource for the poor.) Shakespeare had a financial interest in the land, and to the chagrin of some, he took a neutral position, making sure only that his own income from the land was protected. In the last few weeks of Shakespeare’s life, the man who was to marry his younger daughter Judith—a tavern-keeper named Thomas Quiney—was charged in the local church court with “fornication.” A woman named Margaret Wheeler had given birth to a child and claimed it was Quiney’s; she and the child both died soon after. Quiney was thereafter disgraced, and Shakespeare revised his will to ensure that Judith’s interest in his estate was protected from possible malfeasance on Quiney’s part.

Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616 at the age of 52. He remained married to Anne until his death and was survived by his two daughters, Susannah and Judith. Susannah married Dr. John Hall. Neither Susannah’s nor Judith’s children had any offspring, and as such, there are no known direct descendants of the poet and playwright alive today. It was rumored, however, that Shakespeare was the real father of his godson, William Davenant.

Shakespeare is buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. He was granted the honor of burial in the chancel not on account of his fame as a playwright, but for purchasing a share of the tithe of the church for £440 (a considerable sum of money at the time). Shakespeare’s funeral monument rests on the wall nearest his grave, and shows him posed with quill and paper in hand. Each year on his claimed birthday, a new quill pen is placed in the writing hand of the bust. It was common in his time for graves in the chancel of the church to be emptied as more room was needed, with the contents removed to a nearby charnel house. Possibly fearing that his body would be removed, he is considered to have written the following epitaph on his tombstone:

Good frend for Jesvs sake forbeare, To digg the dvst encloased heare. Bleste be ye man ӳt spares thes stones, And cvrst be he ӳt moves my bones.

Popular legend claims that unpublished works by Shakespeare may lie inside his tomb, but no one has ever verified these claims, perhaps for fear of the curse included in the quoted epitaph. Perhaps out of respect for the greatest playwright of all time.

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Shakespeare's Biography

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William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, allegedly on April 23, 1564. Church records from Holy Trinity Church indicate that he was baptized there on April 26, 1564. Young William was born of John Shakespeare, a glover and leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a landed local heiress. William, according to the church register, was the third of eight children in the Shakespeare household—three of whom died in childhood. John Shakespeare had a remarkable run of success as a merchant, alderman, and high bailiff of Stratford, during William's early childhood. His fortunes declined, however, in the late 1570s.

There is great conjecture about Shakespeare's childhood years, especially regarding his education. Scholars surmise that Shakespeare attended the grammar school in Stratford. While there are no records extant to prove this claim, Shakespeare's knowledge of Latin and Classical Greek would tend to support this theory. In addition, Shakespeare's first biographer, Nicholas Rowe, wrote that John Shakespeare had placed William "for some time in a free school." John Shakespeare, as a Stratford official, would have been granted a waiver of tuition for his son. As the records do not exist, we do not know how long William may have attended the school, but the literary quality of his works suggests a solid educational foundation. What is certain is that William Shakespeare never proceeded to university schooling, which has contributed to the debate about the authorship of his works.

The next documented event in Shakespeare's life is his marriage to Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582. William was 18 at the time, and Anne was 26—and pregnant. Their first daughter, Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. The couple later had twins, Hamnet and Judith, born February 2, 1585 and christened at Holy Trinity. Hamnet died in childhood at the age of 11, on August 11, 1596.

For the seven years following the birth of his twins, William Shakespeare disappears from all records, finally turning up again in London some time in 1592. This period, known as the " Lost Years ," has sparked as much controversy about Shakespeare's life as any period. Rowe notes that young Shakespeare was quite fond of poaching, and may have had to flee Stratford after an incident with Sir Thomas Lucy, whose deer and rabbits he allegedly poached. There is also rumor of Shakespeare working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire for a time, though this is circumstantial at best.

It is estimated that Shakespeare arrived in London around 1588 and began to establish himself as an actor and playwright. Evidently Shakespeare garnered some envy early on, as related by the critical attack of Robert Greene, a London playwright, in 1592: "...an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes fac totum , is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country."

Greene's bombast notwithstanding, Shakespeare must have shown considerable promise. By 1594, he was not only acting and writing for the Lord Chamberlain's Men (called the King's Men after the ascension of James I in 1603), but was a managing partner in the operation as well. With Will Kempe, a master comedian, and Richard Burbage, a leading tragic actor of the day, the Lord Chamberlain's Men became a favorite London troupe, patronized by royalty and made popular by the theatre-going public.

Shakespeare's accomplishments are apparent when studied against other playwrights of this age. His company was the most successful in London in his day. He had plays published and sold in octavo editions, or "penny-copies" to the more literate of his audiences. Never before had a playwright enjoyed sufficient acclaim to see his works published and sold as popular literature in the midst of his career. In addition, Shakespeare's ownership share in both the theatrical company and the Globe itself made him as much an entrepeneur as artist. While Shakespeare might not be accounted wealthy by London standards, his success allowed him to purchase New House and retire in comfort to Stratford in 1611.

William Shakespeare wrote his will in 1611 , bequeathing his properties to his daughter Susanna (married in 1607 to Dr. John Hall). To his surviving daughter Judith, he left £300, and to his wife Anne left "my second best bed." William Shakespeare allegedly died on his birthday, April 23, 1616. This is probably more of a romantic myth than reality, but Shakespeare was interred at Holy Trinity in Stratford on April 25. In 1623, two working companions of Shakespeare from the Lord Chamberlain's Men, John Heminges and Henry Condell, printed the First Folio edition of his collected plays, of which half were previously unpublished.

William Shakespeare's legacy is a body of work that will never again be equaled in Western civilization. His words have endured for 400 years, and still reach across the centuries as powerfully as ever. Even in death, he leaves a final piece of verse as his epitaph:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones.

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Shakespeare's life.

19th-century portrait of Shakespeare with his family at home in Stratford

William Shakespeare: A biography

Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don’t know everything about Shakespeare’s life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don’t know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare’s life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes.

Looking for more in-depth information? Need something you can cite? Read an essay about Shakespeare’s life from the Folger Shakespeare Editions. Read essay

Primary sources

Visit Shakespeare Documented to see primary-source materials documenting Shakespeare’s life. This online resource of items from the Folger and other institutions brings together all known manuscript and print references to Shakespeare and his works, as well as additional references to his family, in his lifetime and shortly thereafter.

Early life: Birth and childhood

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare’s oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff—much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don’t know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford’s grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.

A horn book in the Folger collection, similar to one that Shakespeare might have learned to read from

Marriage (to Anne Hathaway) and children

A few years after he left school, in late 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was already expecting their first-born child, Susanna, which was a fairly common situation at the time. When they married, Anne was 26 and William was 18. Anne grew up just outside Stratford in the village of Shottery. After marrying, she spent the rest of her life in Stratford.

In early 1585, the couple had twins, Judith and Hamnet, completing the family. In the years ahead, Anne and the children lived in Stratford while Shakespeare worked in London, although we don’t know when he moved there. Some later observers have suggested that this separation, and the couple’s relatively few children, were signs of a strained marriage, but we do not know that, either. Someone pursuing a theater career had no choice but to work in London, and many branches of the Shakespeares had small families.

Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet, died in 1596 at the age of 11. His older daughter Susanna later married a well-to-do Stratford doctor, John Hall. Their daughter Elizabeth, Shakespeare’s first grandchild, was born in 1608. In 1616, just months before his death, Shakespeare’s daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney, a Stratford vintner. The family subsequently died out, leaving no direct descendants of Shakespeare.

London theater

For several years after the birth of Judith and Hamnet in 1585, nothing is known for certain of Shakespeare’s activities: how he earned a living, when he moved from Stratford, or how he got his start in the theater.

Following this gap in the record, the first definite mention of Shakespeare is in 1592 as an established London actor and playwright, mocked by a contemporary as a “Shake-scene.” The same writer alludes to one of Shakespeare’s earliest history plays, Henry VI, Part 3 , which must already have been performed. The next year, in 1593, Shakespeare published a long poem, Venus and Adonis . The first quarto editions of his early plays appeared in 1594.

For more than two decades, Shakespeare had multiple roles in the London theater as an actor, playwright, and, in time, a business partner in a major acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (renamed the King’s Men in 1603). Over the years, he became steadily more famous in the London theater world; his name, which was not even listed on the first quartos of his plays, became a regular feature—clearly a selling point—on later title pages.

Final years and death

Shakespeare prospered financially from his partnership in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later the King’s Men), as well as from his writing and acting. He invested much of his wealth in real-estate purchases in Stratford and bought the second-largest house in town, New Place, in 1597.

Among the last plays that Shakespeare worked on was The Two Noble Kinsmen , which he wrote with a frequent collaborator, John Fletcher, most likely in 1613. He died on April 23, 1616—the traditional date of his birthday, though his precise birthdate is unknown. We also do not know the cause of his death. His brother-in-law had died a week earlier, which could imply infectious disease, but Shakespeare’s health may have had a longer decline.

The memorial bust of Shakespeare at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford is considered one of two authentic likenesses, because it was approved by people who knew him. The other such likeness is the engraving by Martin Droeshout in the 1623 First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays, produced seven years after his death by his friends and colleagues from the King’s Men.

View a timeline of Shakespeare’s life with links to key supporting documents on Shakespeare Documented .

View timeline

The bust of Shakespeare in the Folger Reading Room is a copy of the statue at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.

Frequently asked questions

Why did shakespeare leave his wife his “second best bed”.

William Shakespeare wrote in his last will and testament, dated March 25, 1616, “Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture” (furniture is used to refer to the curtains and bedcover which formed part of the complete bed).

This was not an unusual bequest, nor was it likely to have been intended as a snub. The best bed was usually regarded as an heirloom piece, to be passed to the heir rather than the spouse. It is also probable that the best bed would have been reserved for guests, meaning the “second best” was the bed that William and Anne shared.

What did Shakespeare’s son die of?

We don’t really know how Shakespeare’s young son Hamnet died. He had a twin sister named Judith, who lived to adulthood and married, but Hamnet died at the age of 11 and a half. Child mortality was high in the 16th century; there were no antibiotics and many childhood diseases might therefore prove fatal, such as scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, and even measles. He was buried on August 11, 1596.

What is the inscription on Shakespeare’s grave?

GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE, TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE: BLESTE BE Ye [the] MAN Yt [that] SPARES THES STONES, AND CURST BE HE Yt [that] MOVES MY BONES.

Did Shakespeare have a coat of arms?

Yes, William’s father, John Shakespeare, was granted a coat of arms in 1596. It was disputed in 1602 by York Herald, Ralph Brooke, saying that the arms were too similar to existing coats of arms, and that the family was unworthy. However, the challenge was unsuccessful, as the Shakespeare coat of arms appears in later heraldic collections and on William Shakespeare’s funeral monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Does Shakespeare have descendants?

William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had three children. The eldest, Susanna, was baptized on May 26, 1583, and married John Hall in 1607. They had one child, Elizabeth, in 1608. Elizabeth was married twice, to Thomas Nash in 1626, and to John Bernard in 1649. However, she had no children by either husband.

William and Anne also had twins, Judith and Hamnet, who were baptized on February 2, 1585. Hamnet died at age 11 and a half. Judith married Thomas Quiney in 1616, and the couple had three sons: Shakespeare Quiney, who died in infancy, and Richard and Thomas, who both died in 1639 within a month of each other. Since neither of the boys married, there is no possibility of any legitimate descendants from Shakespeare’s line.

It is possible, however, to claim a relationship to Shakespeare through his sister, Joan. She married William Hart some time before 1600, and there are many descendants of this marriage alive today, in both the male and female lines.

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Biography of William Shakespeare, History's Most Famous Playwright

His plays and sonnets are still studied and performed to this day

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William Shakespeare (April 23, 1564–April 23, 1616) wrote at least 37 plays and 154 sonnets , which are considered among the most important and enduring ever written. Although the plays have captured the imagination of theatergoers for centuries, some historians claim that Shakespeare didn’t actually write them .

Amazingly, little is known about Shakespeare’s life. Even though he is the world’s most famous and popular playwright , historians have had to fill in the gaps between the handful of surviving records from Elizabethan times .

Fast Facts: William Shakespeare

• Known For : One of history's most famous playwrights, who wrote at least 37 plays, which are still studied and performed to this day, as well as 154 sonnets, which are also highly regarded
• Also Known As : The Bard
• Born : April 23, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England
• Parents : John Shakespeare, Mary Arden
• Died : April 23, 1616 in Stratford-upon-Avon
• Published Works : " Romeo and Juliet" (1594–1595), "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" (1595–1596), " Much Ado About Nothing " (1598–1599), "Henry V" (1598–1599), " Hamlet " 1600–1601, "King Lear" (1605–1606), "Macbeth" ( 1605–1606), "The Tempest" (1611–1612)
• Awards and Honors : After Shakespeare's death, a funerary monument was erected to honor him at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he is buried. It depicts a half-effigy of The Bard in the act of writing. Numerous statues and monuments have been erected around the world to honor the playwright.
• Spouse : Anne Hathaway (m. Nov. 28, 1582–April 23, 1616)
• Children : Susanna, Judith and Hamnet (twins)
• Notable Quote : "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."

Early Years

Shakespeare was probably born on April 23, 1564 , but this date is an educated guess because we only have a record of his baptism three days later. His parents, John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, were successful townsfolk who moved to a large house in Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, from the surrounding villages. His father became a wealthy town official and his mother was from an important, respected family.

It is widely assumed that Shakespeare attended the local grammar school where he would have studied Latin, Greek, and classical literature . His early education must have made a huge impact on him because many of his plots draw on the classics.

Shakespeare’s Family

At age 18, on November 28, 1582, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway from Shottery, who was already pregnant with their first daughter. The wedding would have been arranged quickly to avoid the shame of having a child born out of wedlock. Shakespeare fathered three children, Susanna, born in May 1583 but conceived out of wedlock, and Judith and Hamnet, twins who were born in February 1585.

Hamnet died in 1596 at age 11. Shakespeare was devastated by the death of his only son, and it is argued that "Hamlet," written four years later, is evidence of this.

Theater Career

At some point in the late 1580s, Shakespeare made the four-day ride to London, and by 1592 had established himself as a writer. In 1594, an event occurred that changed the course of literary history: Shakespeare joined Richard Burbage’s acting company and became its chief playwright for the next two decades. Here, Shakespeare was able to hone his craft, writing for a regular group of performers.

Shakespeare also worked as an actor in the theater company , although the lead roles were always reserved for Burbage himself. The company became very successful and often performed in front of the Queen of England, Elizabeth I. In 1603, James I ascended the throne and granted his royal patronage to Shakespeare’s company, which became known as The King’s Men.

Shakespeare the Gentleman

Like his father, Shakespeare had excellent business sense. He bought the largest house in Stratford-upon-Avon by 1597, owned shares in the Globe Theater, and profited from some real estate deals near Stratford-upon-Avon in 1605. Before long, Shakespeare officially became a gentleman, partly due to his own wealth and partly due to inheriting a coat of arms from his father who died in 1601.

Later Years and Death

Shakespeare retired to Stratford in 1611 and lived comfortably off his wealth for the rest of his life. In his will, he bequeathed most of his properties to Susanna, his eldest daughter, and some actors from The King’s Men. Famously, he left his wife his “second-best bed” before he died on April 23, 1616 . (This date is an educated guess because we only have a record of his burial two days later).

If you visit Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, you can still view his grave and read his epitaph engraved into the stone:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones.

More than 400 years after his death, Shakespeare's plays and sonnets still hold a special place in theaters, libraries, and schools around the world. "His plays and sonnets have been performed in nearly every major language on every continent," notes Greg Timmons writing on Biography.com.

In addition to the legacy of his plays and sonnets, many of the words and phrases Shakespeare created infuse dictionaries today and are embedded in modern English, including these sayings from some of his plays:

• All that glitters isn't gold (" The Merchant of Venice ")
• All's well that ends well (" All's Well that Ends Well ")
• To be-all and the end-all (" Macbeth ")
• Break the ice (" The Taming of the Shrew )
• We have seen better days (" As You Like It ")
• Brave new world (" The Tempest ")
• Brevity is the soul of wit (" Hamlet ")
• Cruel to be kind ("Hamlet")
• It's Greek to me (" Julius Caesar ")
• Something wicked this way comes ("Macbeth")
• Star-crossed lovers (" Romeo and Juliet ")
• Wild-goose chase ("Romeo and Juliet")
• The world is my oyster (" The Merry Wives of Windsor ")

Few writers, poets, and playwrights—and Shakespeare was all three—have had the influence on culture and learning that Shakespeare has. With luck, his plays and sonnets may still be revered and studied four centuries from now.

• “ IWonder - William Shakespeare: The Life and Legacy of England's Bard. ”  BBC.
• “ Shakespeare's Words & Phrases. ”  Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
• Timmons, Greg. “ William Shakespeare's 400th Anniversary: The Life & Legacy of The Bard. ”  Biography.com , A&E Networks Television, 2 Nov. 2018.
• “ Who Was William Shakespeare? Everything You Need to Know. ”  Childhood, Life Achievements & Timeline , thefamouspeople.com.
• “ William Shakespeare Quotes. ”  BrainyQuote , Xplore.
• Facts About Shakespeare
• A Timeline of William Shakespeare's Life
• William Shakespeare's Family
• A Complete List of Shakespeare’s Plays
• Where Was Writer William Shakespeare Born?
• Fun and Creative Ways to Celebrate Shakespeare's Birthday
• How Did William Shakespeare Die?
• Biography of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's Wife
• What We Know About Shakespeare's Death
• Top Quotes From Shakespeare
• William Shakespeare's School Life, Childhood, and Education
• Shakespeare's Brothers and Sisters
• Cervantes and Shakespeare: What They Had in Common (and Didn’t)
• Shakespeare Authorship Debate
• The Influence of the Renaissance in Shakespeare's Work
• 100 Awfully Good Examples of Oxymorons

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12.1: William Shakespeare- Biography

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William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”. His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of around38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, of which the authorship of some is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare’s private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories and these works remain regarded as some of the best work produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet , Othello , King Lear , and Macbeth , considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, John Heminges andHenry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare’s. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as “not of an age, but for all time”. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his work has been repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Additional information on Shakespeare’s life, work, and influence can be found here.

• William Shakespeare. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Image of Shakespeare. Authored by : John Taylor. Located at : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shakespeare.jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

William Shakespeare

• Occupation: Playwright, actor and poet
• Born: April 26, 1564 baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, England (likely born on April 23rd)
• Best known for: Writing plays such as Romeo and Juliet , Hamlet , and Macbeth

• The lead actor and star of many of Shakespeare's plays was Richard Burbage.
• The original Globe Theatre burned down in 1613. It was rebuilt in 1614, but was then closed in 1642.
• A modern reconstruction of the Globe was built in London by American actor Sam Wanamaker. It opened in 1997.
• He wrote 37 plays in his lifetime averaging about 1.5 plays per year he was writing. Some scholars think that he wrote around 20 more plays that have been lost, which would put the total to 57!
• His plays were performed for both Queen Elizabeth I and King James I.
• You can take the letters from "William Shakespeare" and write "I am a weakish speller."
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

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Read the best and most famous Shakespeare quotes, monologues and soliloquies by play ( Hamlet quotes ,  Macbeth quotes ,  Romeo & Juliet quotes and more), or see Shakespeare’s love quotes .

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Brush up on Shakespeare’s family – his parents, siblings and his own three children, alongside in-depth information on Anne Hathaway – Shakespeare’s wife .

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Need to know what iambic pentameter is, or how to write a sonnet ? We also have modern translations of all 154 sonnets (including sonnet 18 ), and all of Shakespeare’s poems .

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Studies of Shakespeare’s most loved characters – Lady Macbeth , Caliban , Queen Mab , Laertes , Prospero , Polonius , Friar Laurence , Falstaff , Fortinbras , and many more.

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Everything to know about each of the London theatres Shakespeare was connected to , including  Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre , along with some great  Globe Theatre facts .

Shakespearean Insults

With his insults Shakespeare was most certainly a master of his trade. Try insulting someone in Elizabethan English with this list of Shakespeare insults .

Shakespeare’s Picture

What did Shakespeare look like? See all of the known portraits and pictures of William Shakespeare – Chandos, Cobbe, Droueshot, Hilliard, Holy Trinity Bust, Saunders – with a description of each.

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Welcome to our new “Who Were They” series here at Beyond, where we look at influential figures in English, Maths, Science and more. This blog explores the bard himself, William Shakespeare, by providing a Shakespeare biography for KS3 or GCSE English students. Our Shakespeare biography will look at:

• William Shakespeare’s Family 
• William Shakespeare’s Early life 
• William Shakespeare in London 
• Shakespeare’s Works 

Shakespeare’s Legacy

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William Shakespeare’s Family

In 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, the famous playwright William Shakespeare was born. The exact date of his birth is unknown. However, there are records of his baptism on the 26th of April. It was very common at this time to baptise babies around three days after their birth so his ‘official’ birthday is celebrated on the 23rd of April.

William was one of six children born to John and Mary Shakespeare. He had two older sisters, Joan and Judith and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund.

William’s father was a leather merchant and his mother came from a wealthy family. She was often referred to as a ‘local-landed heiress’ for this reason.

• Shakespeare was born in 1564 Stratford-upon-Avon
• He was baptised on April 26th
• His parents were John and Mary Shakespeare
• He had five siblings
• His father was a successful merchant and his mother came from a wealthy family

William Shakespeare’s Early Life

Along with the lack of birth records, there is also a lack of school records for William Shakespeare. However, it is believed that we attended King’s New School in Stratford. Although there are no ‘official’ documents confirming his education there, the school often refers to itself as “Shakespeare’s School”. Traditionally an all boys school, the grammar school began admitting girls in 2013 and boasts a long list of notable ex students including famous musicians and actors.

William’s father, John Shakespeare, continued to be a successful merchant throughout William’s early life. He held positions such as alderman and bailiff which today would be similar to acting as Mayor to the town.

On the 28th November 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was 26 years old when they were married, whilst he was only 18 years old. She was pregnant with their first child at the time of their marriage. Their daughter Susana was born not long later in 1583. The couple then welcomed twins into the world two years later, a boy named Hamnet and a girl named Judith. Little is known about their mother or their lives. However, it is recorded that sadly at the age of 11, Hamnet died.

After his twin children were born, William Shakespeare disappeared from legal records. These years are often referred to as “The Lost Years”. 

There are many theories to explain what Shakespeare may have been doing during this time. A popular story to cover this missing time revolves around William and a landowner named Sir Thomas Lucy. The story goes that Shakespeare had poached deer from Sir Lucy’s estate and had fled to London to escape punishment where he began his career as an actor.

Other theories ponder whether he had worked as a school master in Stratford or served time as a soldier. Either way it was very common during the 1500s to record baptisms, marriages and deaths. Therefore it is not unusual to find gaps and perhaps it is more fun to imagine where this famous playwright may have spent his time during these ‘lost years’.

• It is thought Shakespeare attended King’s New School in Stratford
• Shakespeare’s father was alderman and bailiff to the town
• On 28th November 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway
• They had 3 children together, a daughter Susana and twinks Judith and Hamnet
• Between the baptism of his twins and his early success in London, there is no record of where Shakespeare was. This is known as “The Lost Years”.

William Shakespeare in London

In 1592, William Shakespeare was recorded once again, this time in London. When he first arrived it is believed he worked as a horse attendant at the local theatres. By the time he is next recorded in history, he was already earning money as an actor and playwright.

William Shakespeare joined an acting company whilst in London named The Lord Chamberlain’s Men. After King James I was crowned, they changed their name to The King’s Men in tribute. 

It was during this time that Shakespeare began to sell his written work and his popularity amongst Londoners began to grow.

By 1597, he was earning so much money that he purchased a new home in Stratford. It was the second largest property in the town. However, it took almost four days to travel between London and Stratford at this time so he rarely visited. He usually would return during the forty days of Lent when the theatres would close and he was not needed in London.

As his fortune grew, he began to invest in other properties around Stratford and rent them out, becoming a prosperous landlord. It is said he earned around £60 a year from his properties. This is the equivalent of approximately £8,000 today and would cover 1200 days of regular wages.

• In 1592, Shakespeare was a successful actor and playwright in London
• He was a member of The Lord Chamberlain acting company which was later renamed The King’s Men as tribute to James I who had become King
• In 1597, Shakespeare bought the second largest house in Stratford
• He continued to expand his property portfolio and became a prosperous landlord

Shakespeare’s Works

William Shakespeare wrote over 38 plays and over 150 poems during his career. His plays could be broken down into three categories. Comedies, which were full of fun, irony, wordplay and mystery. He wrote Tragedies which as the name would suggest often ended in sadness or heartbreak. The final plays under the category of Historical, exploring the kings and queens of Britain and other figures throughout history and mythology.

Many of his plays were performed for Queen Elizabeth I and included themes of religion, love and monarchy.

There are several plays that are famous throughout the world such as Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth. However, it is in his lesser known plays that some of Shakespeare’s best writing can be found.

You can find all of Shakespeare’s plays in alphabetical order here .

Shakespeare’s Comedies

• All’s Well That Ends Well
• As You Like It
• The Comedy of Errors
• Love’s Labour’s Lost
• Measure for Measure
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• The Merchant of Venice
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Pericles, 
• Prince of Tyre 
• Taming of the Shrew 
• The Tempest 
• Troilus and Cressida 
• Twelfth Night 
• Two Gentlemen of Verona 
• Winter’s Tale 

Shakespeare’s Histories 

• Henry IV, part 1 
• Henry IV, part 2 
• Henry V 
• Henry VI, part 1 
• Henry VI, part 2 
• Henry VI, part 3 
• Henry VIII 
• King John 
• Richard II 
• Richard III 

Shakespeare’s Tragedies

• Antony and Cleopatra 
• Coriolanus 
• Hamlet 
• Julius Caesar 
• King Lear 
• Macbeth 
• Othello 
• Romeo and Juliet 
• Timon of Athens 
• Titus Andronicus 

Shakespeare’s Poetry 

• The Sonnets 
• A Lover’s Complaint 
• The Rape of Lucrece 
• Venus and Adonis 
• Funeral Elegy by W.S.
• Shakespeare wrote over 38 plays and over 150 poems
• His plays come under three categories – Comedy, Tragedy and History
• His work often features themes of religion, love and monarchy
• Queen Elizabeth I attended many performances of Shakespeare’s work

The works of William Shakespeare have become so popular that they have been translated into 80 languages, worldwide. We ourselves have over three hundred words and well-known phrases in the English language, which Shakespeare invented himself. 

Some of these words for example include, ‘barefaced’, ‘fair-play’, ‘well-read’ and ‘lacklustre’. We can also thank Shakespeare for phrases such as ‘seen better days’. ‘Wild goose chase’ and ‘good riddance’.

Included in Shakeseare’s poetry are his 154 sonnets. A sonnet is a poem with 14 lines and is written in iambic pentameter. The term ‘sonnet’ comes from the Italian word ‘sonetto’, meaning “a little sound or song”. Most of Shakespeare’s sonnets are about love, loss and death.

William Shakespeare died on April 23rd 1616 at the age of 52. A vicar reported several years later that he likely died from a fever he had caught after a night out ‘merry making’, but no official cause of death was ever recorded.

A few months before his death, William Shakespeare had written his will. He wrote, “Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture”. Many people have mistakenly thought this was a snub towards his wife, Anne. However, this was not unusual. The ‘best bed’ was often an heirloom passed down from generation to generation. It could have also been a reference to the guest room which was kept grand for when people came to visit. The second best bed is a reference to the one he would have shared with his wife. Therefore it more likely means he left their shared belongings of their home to her. He left the rest of his belongings to his eldest daughter Susana.

William Shakespeare is buried in the Holy Trinity churchyard in Stratford. Shortly after he was laid to rest, there was some discussion about moving his remains to Westminster Abbey. However, the decision to leave him in his hometown was made. Instead on the 29th January 1741, a life-size marble statue was erected of the bard in the Poet’s corner of Westminster Abbey. It is here that many other actors and actresses are now buried and remembered for their work in Shakespearean plays.

• William Shakespeare’s work has been translated into 80 languages
• He invented over 300 words and phrases that are used in English today
• He wrote 154 sonnets about love, loss and death
• He died on April 23rd 1616 at the age of 52
• He left his shared belongings to his wife and the rest of his things to his eldest daughter
• William Shakespeare is buried in Holy Trinity churchyard, Stratford
• He is also remembered through his life-size marble statue in Westminster Abbey

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William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is one of the most famous English playwright, poets, and actors. He is viewed as the supreme writer in English literature and the greatest dramatist of the world. He is also called as the national poet of England and the “Bard of Avon.” He has written 154 sonnets, few other verses, two long narrative poems, and 39 plays. Shakespeare’s plays are translated into almost every major language of the world and are performed on stage to date.

A Short Biography of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born on 23rd April 1564 and baptized on 26th April 1564 to John Shakespeare and Mary Shakespeare. He was the oldest living child, whereas the first two children died in infancy. William Shakespeare grew up as an elder brother with five siblings that include three brothers. 

Shakespeare’s father had a profession of leatherworker who had his own business. When William was five, his father became a town Bailiff, a man with the same status as the mayor. However, after some time, John Shakespeare, with some unknown reasons, did not appear to have any public life.

Shakespeare, being the privileged citizen of Stratford, attended grammar school of Stratford. Like all schools, the course curriculum of this school included the Latin classics and memorization, writing, and acting of plays. Till the age of 15, Shakespeare attended the school.

William wedded Anne Hathaway in 1582, a few years after leaving school. Anne was already pregnant with their first child Susan. At the time of the marriage, Shakespeare was 18 years old while Anne was 28. They both spent their life in Stratford after marriage.

In 1585, Shakespeare and Anne completed their family by giving birth to twins: Hamnet and Judith. In the following years, Shakespeare moved to London, leaving his family in Stratford. This period of his life is known as “lost years” as nobody knew what he was up to these days until he was seen in the London theatre in 1592. He pursued a career in the theatre as an actor. 

London Theater

As mentioned before, Shakespeare appeared in 1592 as an actor in the London theatre after seven “lost years.” He appeared as a well-known London playwright and actor and was mocked by his fellow writer as “Shake-scene.” In 1593, Shakespeare published Venus and Adonis , a long poem. In 1594, the first edition of his plays was published. As an actor and playwright, Shakespeare performed multiple roles in the London theatre for the next two decades.

During that time, he also became a business partner in a leading acting company named Lord Chamberlain’s men. In 1603, the company was renamed as King’s Men. In the course of years, in the world of London theatre, Shakespeare became increasingly famous; his name turned into a brand that was sold on the title pages, though his name was not even mentioned in his first quarto plays.

Shakespeare flourished financially with acting and writing as well as with his partnership with Lord Chamberlain’s Men. He invested his finances in buying the real-estate in Stratford. In 1597, he bought New Place, the second-largest house in Stratford.

Shakespeare died on 23 rd April 1616. The date of his death is the same as the traditional date of his birth. The cause of death is unknown; however, it is assumed that his brother-in-law died a week prior to him with an infectious disease that could be transmitted to him as well. However, the health of Shakespeare had been declining for a long time. 

William Shakespeare’s Writing Style

Shakespeare used the conventional style of his age to write his early plays. The plays were written in the stylized language , though it was not always the demand of the drama/play or character. The verses of his play have extended and elaborated conceits and metaphor s.

The language he used is, most of the time, rhetorical as it was written to be acted by an actor rather than to speak. However, in the play Titus Andronicus , the critics say that the grand speeches delay the action. Similarly, in the play Two Gentlemen of Verona , the verses have been described as artificial.

Nonetheless, Shakespeare soon started to write in t raditional styles . In the historical play, Richard III , the opening soliloquy has its origin in the self-assertion of wickedness in the medieval drama. Simultaneously, the obvious self-realization of Richard anticipates the soliloquies of the mature plays of Shakespeare. There is no single play that marks the transition from transitional style to the freer style . All his plays have a combination of both styles.

The play Romeo and Juliet is the best example that contains the blend of traditional as well as freer style . During the mid-1590s, in the plays Richard II , A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Rome Juliet, Shakespeare had started writing more natural poetry than before. The extended metaphors and conceits that he would use in his plays had turned increasingly to the need for drama.

The standard poetic form employed by Shakespeare in his plays was blank verse . It was composed of iambic pentameter with vivid use of imagery and pun . His poetry is unrhymed and has ten syllables in a line. Each second syllable was supposed to be spoken with stress. The blank verse he used in his early plays is different from the blank verse he used in his later plays.

Though the employment of blank verse is beautiful, the sentences likely to start, pause and finish by the end of the line to avoid dullness. However, when Shakespeare got hold of the blank verse, he started interrupting and varying its flow due to the unique flexibility and power of the poetry released in his famous plays, Hamlet and Julius Caesar .  For example, to create turmoil in the mind of Hamlet, Shakespeare uses this technique.

Shakespeare’s poetic style changed further after writing Hamlet . This changed style is noticed in the emotional passages of his later tragedies. According to the critic A.C. Bradley, this style of Shakespeare is “more concentrated, rapid, varied, and, in construction, less regular, not seldom twisted or elliptical.”

To accomplish this effect, Shakespeare implemented many techniques. These techniques included irregular stops and pauses, run-on lines, and high alteration in length and structure of sentences. For example, in his play, Macbeth , the language of Lady Macbeth’s speeches shifts from one dissimilar simile or metaphor to another.

                     Was the hope drunk,

Wherein you dress’d yourself? Hath it slept since?

And wakes it now, to look so green and pale

At what it did so freely?

(Lady Macbeth, Macbeth , Act I, Scene VII)

In the late romances, Shakespeare created the effect of spontaneity with the shifts in time and unexpected turns in plots. This inspired his last poetic style as he set short and long sentences against one another, piled up the clauses, reversed the subject and object, and omitted the words, thus exciting the audience to complete the sense of sentence by themselves.

The poetic genius of Shakespeare was associated with the concrete sense of London theatre. Shakespeare, like every other contemporary playwright, used the stories from sources like Holinshed and Petrarch to dramatize. He redesigned the plots to create interest and also showed many perspectives of narratives. It was due to this strength of design that ensured the fact that the plays of Shakespeare can be translated with both wide and cutting interpretation without loss of the main plot.

With growing mastery, Shakespeare designed his characters with more diverse motivations and characteristic speech patterns. He sustained the features of his style on earlier plays in his later plays as well. He intentionally moved to artificial style in his late romances to highlight the theatrical illusions.

The punctuation that Shakespeare used at the end of the lines in his early works strengthened the rhyme. This form of blank verse was used by him, along with other contemporary dramatists and playwrights, in dialogues between the characters to uplift the poetry. He used rhyme couplet to end his scenes in the play, therefore created suspense. A well-known example of this form occurs in the play Macbeth when Macbeth leaves the stage to kill Duncan.

Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell

That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell.   

(Macbeth, Macbeth ; Act II, Scene I)

The literary device soliloquy is used effectively by William Shakespeare in his plays. In his plays, a solitary speech is made by the character that gives the audience an insight into the inner feeling, conflict, and motivation of the character. In a soliloquy, the character either addresses the audience and speaks to them directly or speaks an imaginary realm.

The writing of Shakespeare is full of far-reaching puns that indent two things and subtle rhetorical additions. The key element in all his plays is humor. The bawdy puns he used in his plays made his works controversial to the degree that almost every play has sexual puns. The best example of Bawdy punning is his comedy Twelfth Night.

Certainly, the censored versions of Shakespeare’s plays were produced by Henrietta Bowdler as The family Shakespeare. His comic scenes are not restricted to his comedies only, his tragedies and historical plays have a comic interlude. For example, in Hamlet and Henry IV , there are comic scenes that relax the audience.

Similarities to Contemporary Playwrights

Though Shakespeare has a traditional style that was commonly used in his time, his general style is also compared to his contemporary writers. Shakespeare plays have lots of resemblances to the pays of Christopher Marlowe. It seems that Marlowe’s Queen’s Men have a strong influence on Shakespeare in writing his historical plays. His writing style is also compared to the other playwrights like John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont.

Shakespeare borrowed the plots of his plays from stories and plays of other writers. For example, the plot of Hamlet is taken from Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus. Similarly, the plot of Romeo Juliet is taken from The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, a narrative poem by Arthur Brooke. It was common in Shakespeare’s time to borrow the plot of plays from old plays. Even this tradition continued after the death of Shakespeare, as playwrights started borrowing plots from Shakespeare’s works.

Differences from Contemporary Playwrights

We see the expression of a complete variety of human experiences in the works of Shakespeare. He designed his characters “round” that developed over the course of plays as a human being in the course of life, therefore commanded the sympathies of the audiences. Whereas, the characters designed by his contemporary writers used to be archetypes and flat. For example, Macbeth, in the play, Macbeth killed six people on stage and also responsible for many murders offstage.

However, he still gains the sympathies of the audience due to his flawed nature like humans. Similarly, Hamlet is well aware that he has to avenge the death of his father; however, he procrastinates until he has no choice. He experiences a downfall due to his feelings and emotions, just like humans. Characters designed by Shakespeare were complex and humanistic. He would develop the character of his protagonists with the development of the plots.

Works Of William Shakespeare

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• The Merchant of Venice
• Twelfth Night
• The Taming of the Shrew
• As You Like It
• Much Ado About Nothing
• The Comedy of Errors